Alexander Hamilton said that
if every Athenian citizen had been a Socrates, still every
Athenian assembly would have been a mob. So I claim no credit
that I have voted and spoken as I thought, always without
stopping to consider whether public opinion would support
me.
The only serious temptation I have ever had in my public
life came to me in the summer of 1882, when the measure known
as the River and Harbor Bill was pending. The bill provided
for an expenditure of about eighteen million dollars. Of
this a little more than four million was for the execution
of a scheme for the improvement of the Mississippi River and
its tributaries, which had been recommended by President Arthur
in a special message. All the other appropriations put together
were a little less than fourteen million dollars. The bill
passed both Houses. President Arthur vetoed it, alleging
as a reason that the measure was extravagant; that the public
works provided for in it were of local interest, not for the
advantage of international or interstate commerce; and that
it had got through by a system of log-rolling, the friends
of bad schemes in one State joining with the friends of bad
schemes in another, making common cause to support the bill.
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